Graffiti Art in Prison Erasmus Project

Project Title

Graffiti Art in Prison

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions

Project Summary

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the complex of Palazzo Chiaramonte (Steri) in Palermo was the site of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and its prisons. The graffiti, a palimpsest of writings and drawings painted on the cell walls, is a monument of inestimable historical, artistic, and anthropological value. This extraordinary corpus of graffiti is the point of departure for the project Graffiti Art in Prison (hereinafter, GAP), which focuses on art in prison – in the past and today – and connects two worlds: the scientific-academic world (represented by the institutions for higher education promoting the project) and the – often forgotten – world of prisons (represented by the associate partners involved in the project).
The GAP project pursues three main objectives: the first is of a scientific-intellectual nature, the second has an educational character, and the third of a social-cultural impact.
The first objective is to investigate the history of prison graffiti and other forms of art in places of confinement. The focus is on the “secret prisons” of Palazzo Chiaramonte, however other prison graffiti, such as those of Narni (the Inquisition prison, Umbria) and of the Torre del Trovador in the Aljaferia Palace (the Inquisition prison, Zaragoza, Spain), will be investigated with a comparative approach. The observation will be finally extended chronologically and geographically to other forms of graffiti and wall paintings, both historical (ancient and medieval) and contemporary. The second objective is to train a group of young teachers (PhD students) so that they can have an overview of the artistic phenomenon of prison graffiti in a diachronic perspective, and then they can bring graffiti as a contemporary art practice into reformatories through specific artistic actions for inmates. The third objective is to make a concrete contribution to improving the conditions of prisoners in today’s detention institutions through artistic activities based on innovative teaching methods.
For these purposes, six multi-country Intensive Study Programmes and one practical session with prisoners will be organised. The Intensive Study Programmes are addressed to PhD students from the partners HE institutions and from abroad with different academic backgrounds (selected by means of a call for application and the subsequent analysis of their CVs and profiles, including their motivations). The informal artistic activities in prison are addressed to inmates who will be selected on a voluntary basis.
The main results expected from the project are:
– The scientific-intellectual and more widely methodological result includes two Intellectual Outputs: a publication and a video-documentary on the topic of the project.
– The educational result is the training of a group of PhD students, who will constitute the future class of lecturers and experts in the field of the humanities: they will acquire knowledge, awareness, skills, and a valuable “field experience” on the topic of the project.
– The socio-cultural result consists first of all of a switch to a more inclusive higher education system: research and teaching activities will have a strong social impact by bringing graffiti art to the prisons of today and, secondly, in the direct and indirect benefits for the prisoners involved both in their participation in the planned activities and for the artistic value of the same activities.
Many different categories of people will benefit from our programmes not only during the three years of the project, but also on a long-term perspective. The scientific community will have a new substantial study on historical and contemporary graffiti at its disposal, with particular focus on the Inquisition prisons (Intellectual Output 1: publication “Graffiti Art in Prison”); the non-specialist audience will get familiar with graffiti and prison art through the language of the video-documentary and will be informed about the artistic actions carried out in prison (Intellectual Output 2: video-documentary “Traces on the Walls”); the PhD students will receive a complete training on the topic of GAP through six Intensive Study Programmes in which they will learn, gain awareness, discuss, reflect on the issue of art in places of confinement and finally put into practice what they have learned. Ideally, they will continue to pursue this path in their future academic and professional lives; the inmates will become familiar with graffiti and mural art, which can improve their daily lives during the period of detention; the Steri in Palermo will be placed at the centre of an international discussion on Inquisition prisons and graffiti art and of a European network of places and sites which share this important, common patrimony.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 420720 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PALERMO & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA
• Accademia Abadir (ente gestore R.AR.A. SRL)
• MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV